


Easy to be scared, hard to stop

by NormalHumanBean



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Author Doesn't Know How to Use Tags, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Gen, Micheal Afton is Mike Schmidt, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Fnaf 6, Ultimate Custom Night, everytime i try to leave this fandom, i get pulled back into the infinte freddy abyss, pain™
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 02:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14885648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NormalHumanBean/pseuds/NormalHumanBean
Summary: They weren't like the others. They didn't show up on the cameras. They never moved when they knew he was looking. The other animatronics never acknowledged them.The weirdest part was that there was a sense of vague recognition in the look they give him. They always looked at him like he reminded them of someone they knew.





	Easy to be scared, hard to stop

Micheal has accepted that he's not going to understand a lot of what happens at this new pizzeria.

  
Not for lack of trying of course, he'd love to have any sort of clue as to what is going on here. Animatronics from every establishment, different points and time, and possibly different realities (he's still working on that theory). Micheal had just figured that trying to reason his way through things would lead him to go insane. Well, more insane. Sane people generally don't willingly spend time with dozens of killer robots for minimum wage. He just woke up there after burning to death.

  
Wherever he was, it was like some sort of weird paradise. Outside of the restaurant, it's pleasant. He still looks the like the same purple skin and bones person he was after Ennard's evacuation, but no one looks at him with horror and fear anymore. He doesn't feel that emptiness in his torso due to lack of organs anymore. He can digest food again. He has an actual house to himself instead of just hiding out wherever he feels like people won't find him. Or inside the restaurants he guarded. He found the whole set of The Immortal and the Restless under his television. It felt oddly nice.

  
Even his current job was more peaceful than the other Fazbear establishments. With the other Freddy's, there was always a sense of dread lurking in the back of his mind, like he was going to die soon if he stayed at those places (and he did, twice actually). That feeling wasn't at this new place. All of the animatronics were a lot chattier as well. He could actually hear them converse around the pizzeria sometimes. Not about how they were going to kill him, just about mundane things, like fashion choices, or the best flavor of pizza. He occasionally caught himself thinking of them as co-workers rather than murder machines He felt like he could walk around the place without getting torn to bits.

  
Even the most hostile of the ones he'd met previously had mellowed out considerably. Springtrap was more interested in observing the other animatronics than killing Micheal. Ennard mainly just slinked around and looked out windows. Lefty sat in a corner, keeping an eye on everyone. The night shift had stopped being a death trap and became a weirdly intense game that had no chance of anyone getting hurt (or further damaged). There was only one real problem he could find with the pizzeria.

  
The group Micheal had dubbed the Nightmares.

  
They were the oddballs in the group of animatronics, but they all had similar quirks that led them to all be categorized together. The first weird thing about them was that Micheal had never seen them before in his life. All the other animatronics (with the possible exception of Old Man Consequences, but he didn't really fit in with anyone) were ones that the eldest Afton son had seen or heard before. The nightmares were complete strangers in what was mostly a reunion of all of Mike's attempted murderers.

  
The second weird thing was that they were completely monstrous. Their movements were too fluid, too human like compared to the clunky stomping and whirring that the rest of the crowd had. They were able to breathe, but they never spoke, making noises more similar to what an animal would make. They had an absolutely absurd amount of teeth (he had counted at least 30 on each one). Their eyes glowed, but not electrically like the other animatronics. It was more like there was an ethereal glow to their pupils.

  
The third weird thing was that it was almost like they weren't real. They didn't show up on the cameras. They never moved if they knew he was looking, and they always found out if he was no matter how stealthy he tried to be. The other animatronics never acknowledged them when there were in the room. Mike had tried to draw attention to one of them (Jack O Chica, the most easily seen due to being actually on fire) while some of the others were around but when they looked at it, they had said it was like there was glitching in a humanoid shape. They are also impossible to see in the dark, which makes having the lights on very important. Inconveniently, the lights always somehow find a way to turn back off.

  
Whenever Micheal sees one, that dread slowly creeps back in. He had never gotten near them for this reason. The closest he's gotten was when Nightmarionne was behind him while he was checking the cameras. When he noticed the puppet, he got terrified to a level he didn't think he could achieve anymore and immediately scrambled away from the looming figure, knocking over a few figurines in the process. It just stared at him. They always stare at him when they know he's there. Mike doesn't know if it's to intimidate him or if they just have a habit of doing that, but he's probably not going to find out. The weirdest part about the staring was that there was a sense of vague recognition in the look they give him. They always looked at him like he reminded them of someone they knew. It was the only sense of personality he could grab from any of them, aside from dangerous, which is less who they are and more what they are.

  
The worst part was that he saw them outside of the night shift.

  
They never attracted attention to themselves. Sometimes he just saw them among the crowd or out of the corner of his eye. They were always staring directly at him, as usual, but there was no shock in their eyes whenever he stared back. Just that same gaze that gave only the slightest hint that there was something more behind them besides 'they're monsters'. It was creepy and extremely confusing, but ultimately not deadly. Hopefully.

  
After Micheal left the new place for the first time, he had started to keep a journal on all of the animatronics in case he ever has to pass the job on. He had made the (in hindsight, poor) decision to draw a detailed pictures of the animatronics so no confusion arises, but that had started to prove difficult. Some of the animatronics had been very adverse to being drawn. Others wanted more than one detailed image. One of them (BB) had even doodled some of their own drawings in the book. It was chaos, but it was amusing.

  
The nightmares had proven to be the most difficult to draw. Not just because they disappear the moment Mike looks away from them, but also because getting a good look at them is difficult. There's always a streamer or a table in the way when they're in the distance, but getting close to them is a risk Mike isn't going to take. Nightmarionne is the worst because it hates being looked in the eye, so trying to get every detail was an effort in futility. Also it hangs around Music Man a lot, and he's big and creepy and Micheal is unnerved by the thing's presence.

  
One night, Micheal had gone to sleep and started dreaming. Already this was odd, because the undead guard hadn't had any dreams since Ennard ejected itself from Mike's body. It was also odd because Micheal knew he was dreaming, but couldn't wake himself up. The dream was in complete darkness. Nothing was visible until Micheal found the looming form of Nightmare standing before him.

  
The two stood in complete stillness before Mike could work up the courage to speak to the pitch black bear.

  
"Um, what is going on?" the guard asked the creature. To the human's surprise the bear had opened its upper mouth to respond.

  
"Face your fears. Find me." said Nightmare. It's voice was deep, but not raspy. It echoed through Mike's mind, and before he could properly process what the bear said, he woke up in bed.

  
Micheal looked at his digital clock (the 2020s were so different from when he grew up) and saw it was 4:00 P.M. Apparently the dream had taken up most of the time he was asleep, despite feeling like he had only dreamt for a minute. He pulled on some fresh clothes and grabbed something to eat.

  
Micheal Afton was able to accept a lot of things, but he was going to figure out the nightmare animatronics if it kills him. If it does he'll probably just come back again.

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are appreciated, I might continue if I can find out where to take this wild ride.


End file.
